Ryan GrimVerified account

You can always find some limiting principal, but universities take $$ from Saudi sheiks--do they make the cut? Why?

There's a pretty clear limiting principle here, whether the person is in the White House.

But that's a separate issue. In general, is it ok to take $$ from the Saudis? Ok to work with Stalin to beat Hitler?

Ok for Mandela to take $$ from Quadafi to defeat apartheid? It's not that easy to make these distinctions.

The influence peddling/potential corruption issue is **different** than the moral clean source of the $$.

I don't see how that's true at all. The corruption/conflict issues, real or perceived, *are* the moral issue.

Ryan's point, I think, was to be skeptical that all of these donors were motivated by pure altruism.

exactly. And they're not stupid/in the business of wasting money.